Hanover Special Report #23

Compensation Study - UK Non-Life Qualified Actuaries

Michael Stefan

2022-09-06

Introduction

Welcome to Hanover’s fifth consecutive annual compensation survey for non life actuaries.I am grateful, as always, to all respondents as well as those who have provided feedback on it over the years. The project grew out of a desire to have a more granular handle on pay for actuaries in the UK and as I write this in the summer of 2022, with high inflation on everyone’s mind, it seems to be have taken on even more significance. This year’s record response (nearly 250 responses at the time of writing, a 22% response rate) stands testament to that.

As in previous years, we have only surveyed UK GI Fellows (FIAs). By “Fellows”, we mean strictly current Fellows of the UK Institute and Faculty of Actuaries (IFoA). We have not included IFoA Associates or Fellows of European-based actuarial systems unless they are also an FIA. This year we included Fellows of major exam-based actuarial systems such as the USA (FCAS only), Ireland, South Africa and Australia.

The first 8 questions were unchanged from the previous year and we added one question to ascertain the ratio between an individual’s base salary at Apr 2022, compared to April 2021. Like the 2021 survey, I do not report “Maximum” figures any longer as I find there is always an outlier whose earnings are skewed by “one off” events such as crystallizing their shares due to redundancy or a change of company owner. Instead of a “Maximum”, I now report the “Top Decile”, ie the 90th percentile figure. I again do not report any regression results here due to lack of interest, although I have of course developed a number of models that I use internally for predicting earnings. Should you be interested in these models, please enquire with me directly.

Uses

I always find there are three types of “user” for my salary surveys:

This guide should NOT be used to benchmark pay for non-Fellows, ie actuarial students, nearly qualified actuaries, Associates or those “qualified by experience”. I have seen another firm’s salary survey and noticed they freely mixed figures for both students and Fellows, a questionable practice at best; feel free to contact me if you disagree.

I will usually provide both average pay (usually referred to as mean) although I prefer to use median pay. Every compensation study I have completed has included a small number of outliers that unduly influence average pay. Median pay, on the other hand, is much more robust against outliers. The compensation study is meant as as a reference guide, meaning you do not need to read the whole document from start to finish.

Terminology

Findings

We will focus on total earnings (ie P60 + LTIPs), adjusted for 100% full time equivalent pay. I will cover the following:

The overall average for all respondents is £223,062 with a standard deviation of £254,315. As I report later, top decile earnings have increased significantly; in other words, differentials in pay between those in the middle and those at the very top has widened.

Respondent Demographics

Before we present our analysis, it is instructive to consider the demographics of our respondents:

Earnings over 6 years

The table below summarises the data for all of our actuarial salary surveys. Our first survey was published in 2018 and collected data for both 2017-18 and 2016-17, hence we have 6 years’ worth of data. “Year” refers to the tax year ending in April; ie “2017” refers to P60 earnings for the tax year Apr 2016 - Apr 2017. For the first salary survey that we ran, which asked for both 2016-17 and 2017-18 pay data, we did not ask for LTIPs so the figures for those two years refer to P60 earnings only.

Year Mean Median Top Quartile Top Decile Responses
2017 £185,282 £140,000 £220,000 £363,411 144
2018 £197,644 £150,000 £245,000 £388,000 144
2019 £197,750 £147,322 £236,500 £355,960 140
2020 £200,604 £154,000 £247,000 £365,200 155
2021 £ 223,425 £ 158,000 £ 242,000 £ 350,463 169
2022 £ 223,062 £ 160,000 £ 240,000 £ 394,800 245

Following a period of relatively stable mean earnings (c £200k for 2018-2021), mean earnings in 2021 and 2022 are around 10% higher, with the median rising slightly as well (albeit by a much smaller amount), suggesting that top earners are pulling away slightly. The top quartile has been fairly stable for around 3 years but the top decile (ie 90th percentile) earnings quite a bit higher this year compared to 2021.

Looking at LTIPs: in 2020, 23% of survey respondents earned an LTIP; in 2021, only 20% did and this year the corresponding figure is 19%. In 2020, those respondents who received an LTIP earned 14.3% of total earnings from LTIPs, whilst in 2021, respondents who received an LTIP earned 13.3% of total earnings from LTIPs. In 2022, respondents who received an LTIP earned 16.7% of their total earnings from LTIPs.

Distribution of earnings, excluding SMF roles

Here we have produced a boxplot of Total Earnings for both men and women excluding those in SMF roles (ie the most senior “Chiefs”). The intuition here is that far more respondents were male “Chiefs” (25) than female (7), and excluding the “Chiefs” provides a better “like-for-like” comparison. We have truncated any earnings over £700k to aid visualisation and we have excluded the “Intermediary” and “Other” sectors to aid clarity (they had very few responses). Given the distribution of earnings, it’s difficult to argue that men get paid the same as women.

Earnings by sector

In the table below we have summarised our findings, including the average years experience for our respondents. As with 2021 and 2020, “Intermediary” responses are somewhat younger (in terms of the average number of years of experience per respondent), compared to the other categories. “Consultancy” responses need to be treated carefully; our survey has a high percentage of senior actuaries (likely directors or partners), with the average years of experience of a respondent from consulting being 16 years. Our responses are therefore not representative of the typical “pyramid” structure of a consultancy (with lots of juniors and relatively few seniors).

Sector Mean Minimum Median Top Quartile Top Decile Avg Yrs Exp Respondents
Consultancy £ 196,640 £ 80,534 £ 160,000 £ 240,655 £ 324,200 16 33
Intermediary £ 164,545 £ 70,000 £ 140,000 £ 207,500 £ 259,906 13 19
LLM £ 225,332 £ 72,000 £ 164,250 £ 278,395 £ 435,916 14 136
Other £ 202,010 £ 100,000 £ 145,000 £ 187,917 £ 220,000 18 11
PLSME £ 264,513 £ 73,000 £ 153,475 £ 227,500 £ 386,500 16 46

It is interesting to note that the personal lines and SME sector produced the highest mean earnings (due to a small number of outliers), although at the 50th percentile and above, London Market actuaries enjoyed the highest earnings, as in previous years. And while there is some yearly variation in some of the categories (compared to previous years), top decile earnings in both personal lines and SME and the London Market are much higher this year, compared to last (in both cases c 30-40% higher).

Earnings by gender (1)

First of all, we will look at all respondents who do NOT hold a PRA-regulated SMF role. We then “slice” them into categories of younger vs “more experienced”. Recall that these earnings are all for 100% full time equivalent.

Gender Mean Minimum Median Top Quartile Top Decile Avg Yrs Exp Median Yrs Exp Respondents
Female £ 159,636 £ 72,000 £ 126,000 £ 181,667 £ 295,000 14 13 63
Male £ 245,018 £ 70,000 £ 167,040 £ 277,422 £ 427,955 15 13 182

Compared to last year, top quartile earnings are brodly similar but top decile earnings are up very aggresively. As we will see though, this is largely due to top decile earnings being much higher for the “more experienced” cohort; top decile earnings are only slightly up for the “younger” members.

Earnings by gender (2)

Next, we look at respondents with 11 or more years experience:

Gender Mean Minimum Median Top Quartile Top Decile Avg Yrs Exp Median Yrs Exp Respondents
Female £ 179,511 £ 76,033 £ 146,898 £ 206,750 £ 349,215 17 15 44
Male £ 294,551 £ 80,534 £ 205,000 £ 330,464 £ 497,500 18 16 128

Compared to last year, top decile earnings are up by nearly 50% for the more experienced women, and nearly 25% for the more experienced men. On the other hand, once we look at respondents with 10 years experience or less are up slightly for men and basically flat for women.

Gender Mean Minimum Median Top Quartile Top Decile Avg Yrs Exp Median Yrs Exp Respondents
Female £ 113,611 £ 72,000 £ 111,192 £ 120,000 £ 147,196 8 8 19
Male £ 127,604 £ 70,000 £ 123,892 £ 145,608 £ 171,050 8 8 54

Earnings by years experience

The table below shows earnings by number of years experience. Recall that actuaries with 30 or more years experience have all been re-coded as having 30 years experience to prevent the possible identification of older actuaries. The “90-10” ratio is the ratio of the ratio of the pay at the 90th percentile, divided by pay at the 10th percentile, for each respective category. It is a measure of dispersion (or variation, or perhaps you could say inequality) between the “best” and “worst” paid in that category. For example, the lower experience bands have relatively narrow ratios (a ratio of 1.5 means the highest respondent earned 1.5 times the lowest respondent) compared with much higher ratios above the 15 year level.

Mean Minimum Median Top Quartile 90th percentile 90-10 Ratio Respondents
3-5 years £ 90,371 £ 70,000 £ 88,114 £ 100,504 £ 109,250 1.5 6
6-8 years £ 110,413 £ 72,000 £ 100,495 £ 121,500 £ 160,000 2.1 31
9-11 years £ 136,790 £ 85,000 £ 129,000 £ 147,542 £ 182,005 1.8 54
12-14 years £ 171,929 £ 80,534 £ 160,000 £ 195,350 £ 260,800 2.3 47
15-17 years £ 212,954 £ 97,875 £ 181,667 £ 242,500 £ 398,400 3.7 30
18-20 years £ 437,015 £ 76,033 £ 248,133 £ 367,307 £ 645,000 4.5 21
21-23 years £ 342,623 £ 99,968 £ 331,856 £ 425,904 £ 554,144 3.4 19
24-26 years £ 447,730 £ 176,000 £ 383,000 £ 501,000 £ 791,558 3.7 9
27-29 years £ 324,471 £ 78,000 £ 307,000 £ 330,000 £ 486,882 2.5 9
30 years plus £ 366,725 £ 106,000 £ 283,076 £ 376,461 £ 723,000 4.1 16

Earnings by sector for new(ish) Fellows

The table below provides a comparison of total earnings for FIAs with 10 years experience or less. Assuming a mean qualification time of 5 years (+/- 2 years), this would suggest around 5 years post qualification experience (+/- 2 years).

Sector Mean Minimum Median Top Quartile Top Decile Avg Yrs Exp Median Yrs Exp Respondents
Consultancy £ 121,250 £ 100,495 £ 114,500 £ 119,892 £ 143,983 7 7 7
Intermediary £ 122,121 £ 70,000 £ 118,725 £ 137,750 £ 161,825 8 8 12
LLM £ 123,430 £ 72,000 £ 119,000 £ 145,203 £ 168,050 8 8 44
Other £ 120,000 £ 120,000 £ 120,000 £ 120,000 £ 120,000 2 2 1
PLSME £ 131,570 £ 73,000 £ 123,000 £ 128,000 £ 212,600 9 9 9

Please note again that median and mean years of experience for the respondents differ slightly.

Earnings per year by gender

Recall that we define the “Earnings per year” as the ratio of Total Pay (adjusted for 100% FTE) divided by the number of years experience that individual has. For the Earnings per year calculations, we have used the original number of years experience provided by respondents.

We have a high number of male respondents who are either Chief Actuary PC holders and/or hold an SMF position. This could “bias” our results as effectively we would be mixing “leaders” with “doers”. Excluding all respondents with a Chief Actuary PC or who hold an SMF position, we have an “apples for apples” comparison for male vs female “non-Chief Actuaries”. In this case we have a male Earnings per year of £ 14,620 and a female Earnings per year of £ 12,608. By the way, here “doer” is simply used to denote a “non-leader”, although these “doers” may well be senior and lead teams (eg a Head of Reserving). What we really mean is that these “doers” are not regulated Chief Actuaries or hold a regulated (SMF) role.

What are the implications? Men are currently paid more for each year of experience, and the extra pay is substantial, amounting to around 15% more per year of experience. In other words, employers seem to pay less for each year of a woman’s experience. We look into this disparity further in the next slide. Incidentally, this disparity has narrowed compared to last year, when it was nearly 30%.

Earnings per year by gender (2)

One argument for the disparity is that our results contain a number of very senior (mainly male) respondents in consulting, likely director or partner level. We can exclude them and only focus on the “in-house” actuaries at underwriting organisations. As before we focus on “doers” and not “leaders” ie we exclude anyone with a Chief Actuary Practising Certificate or anyone who holds an SMF position.

Our results are now as follows:

The Lloyds and London Market gap between male and female “doers” “Earnings per year” highlighted in last year’s survey seems to have narrowed. Currently a female “doer” earns 86% of what a male “doer” earns.

Within personal personal lines and the SME market, the average female “doer” earns 52% of what a male “doer” earns, per year of experience. This disparity here is largely an artifact of the small number of female respondents and I am wary of jumping to conclusions, but this is a repeat of last year’s results, when women in personal lines seem to be paid much lower compared to their male peers in personal lines.

Earnings for SMF role holders

The following table contains a summary of earnings for those who declared they hold a controlled function (more recently referred as a “Senior Management Function” by the PRA). Our survey did not ask respondents to identify the exact Senior Management Function role they held, so we don’t know whether the individual was the SMF20 Chief Actuary, SMF4 CRO, SMF22 CUO etc. It is also possible that some held multiple SMF roles.

SMF Role Mean Minimum Median Top Quartile Top Decile Respondents
SMF Role £ 386,947 £ 160,000 £ 301,810 £ 477,000 £ 759,253 32
The rest £ 198,441 £ 70,000 £ 145,000 £ 205,000 £ 333,990 213

Another way to look at the data is to segment those who hold either type of Chief Actuary PC and also held an SMF position (these are the respondents that the PRA would recognize as the “Chief Actuary”). In other words, “The Rest” in the table below are the Fellows who hold a Chief Actuary PC but are NOT undertaking an SMF role.

SMF Role Mean Minimum Median Top Quartile Top Decile Respondents
SMF Role £ 389,443 £ 160,000 £ 305,000 £ 485,000 £ 643,298 23
The rest £ 492,906 £ 160,000 £ 339,269 £ 368,750 £ 448,875 16

In all cases, top decile earnings are up significantly compared to last year.

Earnings for Chief Actuaries

The first table covers all holders of a Chief Actuary Practicing Certificate (“PC”), the second and third segment by whether the individual holds a “with Lloyds” or “without Lloyds” PC. Although not shown fully here, the Chief Actuary PC holders in companies tend to be paid more than those with a PC working for a consultancy.

Chief Actuary Mean Minimum Median Top Quartile Top Decile Respondents
All Chief Actuaries with PC £ 431,889 £ 160,000 £ 326,426 £ 435,916 £ 638,194 39
The rest £ 183,527 £ 70,000 £ 141,721 £ 195,525 £ 310,379 206
Chief Actuary, Lloyds Mean Minimum Median Top Quartile Top Decile Respondents
Chief Actuary, with Lloyds £ 387,384 £ 188,829 £ 346,601 £ 446,312 £ 639,044 28
The rest £ 201,859 £ 70,000 £ 145,811 £ 205,000 £ 327,856 217
Chief Actuary, non-Lloyds Mean Minimum Median Top Quartile Top Decile Respondents
Chief Actuary, non-Lloyds £ 545,175 £ 160,000 £ 255,000 £ 364,213 £ 501,000 11
The rest £ 207,920 £ 70,000 £ 156,375 £ 229,500 £ 379,100 234

As an aside, I am, as ever, exceptionally grateful that numerous Chief Actuary PC holders have elected to complete the survey. It is a testament to the level of engagement we have with the actuarial community. Again, top decile earnings are up for everyone, but in particular for Chief Actuary certificate holders.

Total Earnings by Gender and Staff Managed

The chart below plots total earnings, given the number of staff managed. As staff managed can only be a whole number, the dots are stacked on top of each other. There is somewhat of an upward trend between the size of team managed and total earnings. It is also notable that, given a certain number of staff managed (say 2, 3, etc), women are generally nowhere near the top; of all respondents, only for 3 staff managed is a woman the highest total earner, and in quite a few cases women are at the bottom of the stack (eg for 10 staff, 12 staff, 20 staff etc). We have truncated the largest teams in the market, as showing these on there risks identifying the individuals involved. If you are running a team of more than 25 staff, please feel free to contact me directly for a confidential discussion.

Newly qualified fellow earnings

Sector Mean Minimum Median Top Quartile Top Decile Respondents
Consultancy £ 128,265 £ 100,495 £ 119,892 £ 136,784 £ 158,382 4
Intermediary £ 95,510 £ 70,000 £ 90,000 £ 117,450 £ 118,980 5
LLM £ 96,057 £ 72,000 £ 89,508 £ 100,050 £ 122,500 16
Other £ 120,000 £ 120,000 £ 120,000 £ 120,000 £ 120,000 1
PLSME £ 73,000 £ 73,000 £ 73,000 £ 73,000 £ 73,000 1

Clients often ask about salaries (or earnings) for newly qualified actuaries. Given the average qualification time is 5 years (+/- a standard deviation of 2 years), we have selected all respondents with 7 years of experience or less. As before, I report both mean and median but I personally feel median salaries are a better indicator of “where the market is at”. In this case, total earnings range from late 70s to mid 90s, depending on sector. I also want to note that other than LLM, we have a low number of responses for these cohorts so again I am cautious about drawing too many inferences. Please recall that the overall average for all respondents is £223,062.

Conclusion

First of all, thank you for taking the time to read this report.

Demand for actuaries since the pandemic started has been very strong and this is especially true for actuaries who have just qualified, going up to around 5 years post-qualification. Many new roles have been created, especially those that involve data science and/or programming, portfolio analysis and optimisation, and actuarial analysis roles within MGAs or delegated authority environments. “Cyber actuary” roles are also on the increase.

As before, a number of senior actuaries have informed me they are now taking their pension as part of their P60, rather than as a pension, as a result of hitting their lifetime allowance. The majority of respondents won’t be in this situation, so it’s worth bearing this in mind when examining salaries at the very highest level (it’s also why I avoid reporting the maximum if at all possible).

There are two broad take-aways that I’d like to leave you with. First, top decile pay is up significantly for many sub-segments, including virtually all the more experienced members, as well as anyone with a “senior” position (SMF role, Lloyds SAO certificate etc, Chief Actuary PCs). My intuition here is that this is partially due to larger LTIPs; LTIPs this year form a larger part of total compensation compared to last year, perhaps reflecting the harder market and improved prospects for the larger listed (re)insurers.

Secondly, like last year, I find the low comparative level of pay for women in personal lines to be troubling. Our survey does under-sample women in personal lines (22% of the PLSME respondents to our survey are women, compared to 28% in real life). I wonder if part of this is lack of choice in certain cities, where there may only be one employer of GI actuaries. Lloyds managing agencies, on the other hand, are entirely clustered in the City, and if one is unhappy with their pay, there is plenty of choice, usually just around the corner.

About me

I have spent the last 18 years recruiting for senior actuarial, catastrophe modelling and analytical positions in the UK, and abroad. I also research and write virtually all of our research reports, including compensation surveys.

Prior to joining Hanover Search in 2010, I spent 6 years working as lead consultant for the insurance and financial services division of Hays, a global FTSE-250 listed recruitment group.

Prior to university I spent 2 years working in sales for Churchill Insurance, one of the legacy companies of Direct Line Group.

I have a degree in Economics and Mathematics from York University and have completed a number of development courses, including a Strategy and Finance module with INSEAD and a psychometrics certificate with Cambridge University. In the summer of 2020 I completed two R-based courses with Essex University’s Summer School in Quantitative Social Science.

I have 2 young children under 7 so I don’t really have any spare time, but when I get a moment, I usually spend it reading.

Get in touch

Other than my research work (eg salary surveys), I am an active member of Hanover’s search and selection team. I have spent the last 18 years recruiting actuaries for the UK and Anglo-America (re) insurance markets. My client base ranges from consumer insurance, commercial lines and Lloyds of London to more unusual operations involved in insurance linked securities, private equity, captives and broking. I have significant experience of completing difficult searches, especially where the “candidate pool” is very small.

My recruiting philosophy can be summarised as very simply:

I am always happy to:

Feel free to email me to discuss anything contained in this document.









Disclaimer: The information in this publication is of general interest and guidance. The information is not advice, and should not be treated as such. You must not rely on the information in the report as an alternative to advice from an appropriately qualified professional. You should never delay seeking legal advice, disregard legal advice, or commence or discontinue any legal action because of information in the report. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law and subject to the section below, we exclude all representations, warranties, undertakings and guarantees relating to the report. Without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing paragraph, we do not represent, warrant, undertake or guarantee: a) that the information in the report is correct, accurate, complete or non-misleading; b) that the use of guidance in the report will lead to any particular outcome or result.